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| Image Source - IMDb |
When
I watched the teasers for Gold, I couldn’t wait to watch the movie. It had two
of my favourite genre for movies –sports and Indian Independence period drama and
it had Akshay Kumar who has been churning up some good films. The story is a
fictional account based on real events of India winning the gold medal in
Hockey at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London.
We
are a patriotic lot. We have completed 72 years of Independence and yet feel
strongly about our past. While I don’t believe that reparations by Britain to
its former colonies is the solution, I do believe that apologies are in order
and mere condemnation of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as a ‘deeply shameful
act’ by a former British Prime Minister would not absolve them of their actions
past . My heart swells with pride when I see our national flag being hoisted
but are we reduced to merely this – to be seated in a theatre and revel in
seeing our flag unfurl above the nation that plundered and pillaged us for 200
years?
We love sports. Our Hockey players may not be considered
cool enough to clinch major Fairness Cream endorsements, but we did believe for
the longest time that it was our national game until Sports Ministry of India
confirmed otherwise. Look how well Chak De did at the Box Office. It’s the only
movie I’ve watched twice in a theatre.
Let’s
not forget Akshay Kumar! We like him too!
PLOT:
The movie begins with the ‘British’ India team winning the gold medal in the
1936 Olympics held at Germany only to have Britain’s flag hoisted with their
national anthem being played in the background. The manager of the team Tapan
Das (Akshay Kumar) vows to win the next medal with the Indian flag being
hoisted. He has a strong team led by Samrat (Kunal Kapoor). However, due to the
ongoing World War, Olympics is cancelled the consecutive years which sends Tapan
on a downward spiral. The players have gone their separate ways and Tapan is a
penniless alcoholic now.
The
year is 1946. India is on the verge of gaining independence and Olympics is to
be held in London in 1948. Tapan mends his ways and sets about to bring the old
team together but he faces hurdles on the way. Samrat has retired from the game
and instructs Tapan to make Imtiaz Ali Shah (Vineet Kumar Singh) the captain. Along
with Imtiaz, Tapan recruits new members – Himmat Singh (Sunny Kaushal) and
Raghubir Pratap Singh (Amit Sadh) both from different ends of the social
spectrum, but equally brilliant centre forwards.
Partition
takes place, taking along with it most players from the team. The three firangs in the team have been
asked to get back to Australia. The team is low on funds. Morale is low and
egos are high amongst the team members. Tapas faces opposition from his
colleagues.
India
wins the gold.
The
movie begins with Akshay Kumar narrating the story and that’s when my left
eyebrow went up. Akshay Kumar is a Bengali in the film and apart from the
stereotypical references and exclamations in Bengali, he was quite unbelievable
as a Bengali Dada. He’d remember to
pronounce the As as Os during the scenes but while narrating would slip into
his impeccable Hindi accent. The entire
movie, I wondered why they’d gotten Akshay for this role besides the obvious
reason of having a blockbuster star feature on the movie poster, until the final
30 minutes when Akshay is required to give a morale boosting speech to the team
members that ultimately leads them to win the match and earn crores for the
film. You may think I am nitpicking. Oh yes, I am! And this why-
We
have evolved as an audience and gone are the days when we expected our films to
be the quintessential Bollywood masala film with tragedy, comedy, drama,
romance, action etc squeezed into one storyline. This movie had an excellent
story to work on, a brilliant cast- a sure short winner (come on, you can’t go
wrong with a movie that ends with India winning the medal and the entire
audience standing to our national anthem) but what they did was get a big star who
inadvertently managed to hog the limelight from the other
actors/characters, throw in some cheesy slapstick comedy, have a romantic
number thrown in (!!!) and make it a commercial film. What should have been a
serious period drama film, focusing more on the struggles faced by the players
with the imminent freedom, the partition, lack of funds, lack of unity, the pressure
of beating their invaders on their home ground has ended up in a comical
representation of historical events.
Kunal
Kapoor, Mouni Roy, Vineet Kumar had hardly any role to play in this film.
Thankfully, Amit Sadh and Sunny Kaushal have been given their due.
Amit
Sadh was good, but Sunny Kaushal was better. What a brilliant actor Sunny is! His
portrayal of Himmat Singh, a short tempered Sardarji was spot on. I actually
believed they’d gotten a Sardarji to play that role until I started writing
this post and checked out the names of actors.
The
saving grace was the final half hour of the movie. And, of course Sunny
Kaushal.
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